Things that made me smile this week…..

The (very muddy) horses watching me cook through the window - rubbing their noses on the glass!

Making biscuits for cheese for when we had friends round for supper at the weekend

Baking cake  - always makes me smile!

Catkins in the hedge on one of my daily dog walks

Starting work on the house renovation and finding an old fire surround behind the fire place

Finding a wooden beam over a closed up doorway

Out and about in the Lake District

Last week we had my friend Jane to stay, she last came to visit over a year ago now, and over the few days she was staying with us we continued our lakeland adventures.

However, we started a bit further north of the Lake District as J and I had to go to Carlisle on the first morning.  We decided that what ever the weather we would try and get out and about and do things, so after our meeting we all went for a walk around Talkin Tarn and this little stroll around the tarn set us up for a longer walk the next day. 

So the following day Jane and I headed off into the Lake District, we drove through Windermere and Ambleside to Skelwith Bridge where our first port of call was Chesters by the River for lunch! I have not been to Chesters for a long time so it was good to return as the food is excellent and the cakes are amazing. There is a lovely shop to mooch around which sells all sorts of things - but we resisted. Instead, we decided that as the weather was looking good we would go on our walk, and have tea and cake on our return.

It was a gentle - but very muddy and wet underfoot - stroll along one side of Elter Water on part of the Cumbria Way, then over the bridge in Elterwater village, up a hill through a wooded area and followed a footpath across the fell and picked up the Cumbria Way again back to Skelwith Bridge. In total about four and a half miles - and looking forward to our tea and cake at the end. The rain held off, but it did look a bit threatening at times. When we arrived back, much to our dismay we had missed timed our walk by ten minutes as the cafe closed at 4pm weekdays.  Poor planning on my part as I must have looked at the weekend opening times :-(

But we were continuing our day out by going to Keswick to the Theatre by the Lake for an evening performance of 'Swallow and Amazons'. So we headed straight off to find cake and tea in Keswick!

The production was excellent, and we both really enjoyed it. The set and props were so imaginative and the cast brilliant - adults acting children, they got the characters spot on! This show has now finished so there will be a change of programme. 

The next day we stayed nearer to home and went to Kirkby Lonsdale for a mooch around the lovely shops - in the rain! Then went to Barbon, a village nearby, for lunch at Churchmouse Cheeses.

Over our few days together we had lots of catching up, lots of laughs and lots of good food! - and no doubt we will have further adventures again soon.

On the craft front - I have just started another pair of socks and am looking forward to seeing how the stripes work out with this wool.

Things that made me smile this week…..

C very happy with her new hat! (finished on christmas eve to go in her stocking - phew!)

 Our Amaryllis starting to shoot - I've managed to keep this bulb going for the third year!

 Baking artisan bread and it turning out very well indeed - thanks to Lucy at Attic24

 After taking down the Christmas decs - putting up some bunting as the house looked very bare!

Finding snowdrop shoots whilst out walking

This cute photo of Beanie after his walk  - taken by M 

Skiing and the 'Red and White' quilt ta-dah!

The quilt I have been making for my friends is finished and travelled with me to France so I could give it to them when we went back to Praz de Lys on a little ski holiday just before Christmas.

This quilt has been 'in the making' since I went on holiday with them in the summer. I blogged about the summer holiday here and here. I wanted to make something for them as a thank you - and the ideas were swimming around in my head for a while before I finally decided how it should be, and only started making it in November!

I was influenced and inspired by several things. The area of France where they have their apartment is in the Haute Savoie and the colours of the coat of arms for that area are red and white, and there are lots of red and white flags around the area - so that got me thinking about a red and white quilt. Then, when I was researching red and white quilts I come across a beautiful quilt made by Nova of 'a cuppa and a catch up'. Her red work quilt was made as a correspondence quilt with her mum, you can read all about it on her blog. She had embroidered the perfect walking boot, and that was the inspiration for my quilt! I wanted my quilt to reflect aspects of our summer holiday and our 'to be' winter holiday.

The walking boot was perfect, so I contacted Nova to ask if I could use her boot as the inspiration for my quilt, and she replied, thanking me for asking her and said she would be delighted! Thank you Nova.

So here is my ta-dah moment!!  ……  the red and white quilt in the snow. We had a great snow fall over night towards the end of the week and Richard very kindly went outside and held the quilt so I could take a photo.

It was really difficult to decided on just twelve ideas for my red work patches, but the ones I came up with had particular memories from the summer and from previous ski holidays, so I used one in the centre of each 9 patch block.

They absolutely loved the quilt - so much that they have bought it back and are using it in their guest room at home. They had just re decorated the room and are now using the red as an accent colour - so it is perfect! However, I think it may travel back and forth as it will be great to snuggle under in the evenings out in France!

I loved making this quilt - it is the most challenging I've made, and I picked up so many new skills. The  fabric all came together in the end after all my worries over the reds clashing - the Moda 'Winter Lane' fabrics worked well with the others I had - so all is good!

We had such a good ski holiday too - a big thank you again Catherine and Richard for such a great time!

View from my Window - December

Well, this is the end of my years journey across the seasons looking at the view from my window. As I have said before I love this view, the way the light is always changing, the anticipation of the changes in the seasons - so this year I have tried to capture it all. Just one years worth for me to keep and look back on.

This month has been a bit of a blur, what with all the Christmas preparations and me going away on holiday for a week. I seem to remember it being a very dark wet and windy month, but looking at the photos I have taken, it seems I picked some good days! Above are early in the month, then I was away in France for a week skiing with my dear friends (more about that in a later post - so many to catch up on!)

Christmas Eve was very misty and wet here, and the ground is really quite saturated…...

……. Christmas morning was lovely and bright with blue sky…...

….... and the last day of 2013 was lovely and sunny for a good part of the day, showing my lovely view in all its winter glory.

We have just started of 10th year living in this beautiful part of the country, and one of the reasons I was so keen to capture the view is that we are about to embark on a journey - a journey of renovating and extending an old red sandstone two up two down farmhouse into a three bedroom with new living space downstairs old farmhouse. This new journey will start this year, the plans have been passed and hopefully the building work will begin soon. I will miss this lovely view - but it will take a while for all the building work and renovation to take place - and I will learn to love the new view, natures beauty with ensure that! Exciting times ahead this new year.